


jesus will make me a disciple (or maybe he'll let me be your cat)

by bathtubarracuda



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Bittersweet, Cats, Crack, Fix-It of Sorts, Fluff and Angst, Fluff and Crack, Gen, Humor, Mostly fluff though, Peter Parker Needs a Hug, Swearing, Tony Stark Acting as Peter Parker's Parental Figure, Tony Stark Has A Heart, so anyways tony is reincarnated as a cat and peter finds him, teen for swearing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-01
Updated: 2019-06-01
Packaged: 2020-04-05 19:54:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,430
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19047268
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bathtubarracuda/pseuds/bathtubarracuda
Summary: Tony Stark comes back to Peter Parker in the least expected way; In the form of a brown tabby cat named Tuna.





	jesus will make me a disciple (or maybe he'll let me be your cat)

**Author's Note:**

> so uh i’ve never posted a fic before but this was just my own short irondad post-endgame (kind of) fix it fic partially inspired by a line from one of my favorite songs by Slaughter Beach, Dog (i know, weird name. great band though) and also totally not inspired at all by rdj’s love of cats. fair warning, this might be the crackiest shit you’ll read all week. also peter naming animals after the food he feeds them is very good and pure.
> 
> this was also posted on my tumblr ( https://www.tumblr.com/blog/bathtubarracuda ) a while back and it took me so so so long to upload to ao3 because i procrastinate way too much

Peter never believed in fate. After everything that happened, first with his parents, then Ben, then Tony, how could he? Peter couldn’t just accept that these things were meant to happen.

 

Tuna changed his mind.

 

The day that Peter had found Tuna had been a rough day. Only weeks after Tony’s sacrifice, Peter had been avoiding patrol. The way that Karen always greeted him, the 500 web shooter settings that Peter later realized Tony had  _sat down_  and thought of  _for him_ ; it all seemed to settle in his throat like an earthquake, separating the tectonic plates of his heart and causing his entire body to tremble and shake with emotion.

 

Not only was he missing the closest thing he had to a father after Ben passed,  _so much_  had changed. Five years. So many of his classmates were older, in college and starting families. May had been alone for so long, and he couldn’t help but feel  _so guilty_  for sneaking onto that ship and leaving her to worry about him. Mr. Stark had a kid; a real, biological one. Peter had emotional and mental whiplash and now, he felt lonelier than ever.

 

It was hard for Peter not to feel a combination of guilty, insignificant, angry, and sad all at once.

 

So maybe, after all that he went through, maybe it was fate that he said ' _fuck it'_ when he got back from school on that rainy Wednesday, and ran away to Brooklyn to swing from rooftop to rooftop.

 

That’s how they meet: sixteen-year old with a can of tuna from a corner store, feeding a scruffy-looking, speckled brown tabby.

 

At first, it was nothing out of the usual. Peter had fed many a stray dog or cat, even before spider-man. Before he was getting a legit paycheck from Stark Industries (which Tony had insisted on) he used to save up change: quarters between couch cushions, pennies nestled in sidewalk cracks, and nickels abandoned from vending machines. Peter would use the money he found to feed strays.

 

There was no legitimate reason for Peter to take the cat home with him. The boy had been doing this for ages, so why, out of the blue, had he brought this cat, this basic brown tabby home with him?

 

That’s the exact moment Peter looks back on when considering the definition of fate. There was just something about the brown tabby that caught his attention. The way the cat was so trusting, and so friendly, and the face of pure joy he had when Peter had first seen him.

 

He names the cat Tuna. Naturally, of course. It’s the tabby’s favorite food (he assumes), and it’s how they met: over a can of tuna. At first, Peter says that Tuna is a temporary guest. May gives him a look that Peter knows all too well, which roughly translates to “he better be.”

 

As the days pass, it becomes clearer that Tuna is a permanent resident in the Parker household. May never asks Peter to get rid of the damn thing again after she finds the cat curled in Peter’s lap protectively, after a particularly bad patrol.

 

Peter swears that Tuna is the most intelligent cat he’s ever met. He’s able to read his emotions better than most humans can. The cat knows when Peter is stressed, sad, upset, when the weight of the world seems to just pile on top of him like the concrete and steel beams of a skyscraper, like when his lungs seem to concave within the empty cavity of his chest.

 

Tuna just  _knows_. And he  _knows_  how to calm the teenager down as well. The cat will meow softly, nestle himself into the teenager’s lap, or whatever space around the blurry outline that needs to be filled, and just lay there until Peter calms down. It feels like a hug, protective and warm.

 

Tuna is also the biggest cat Peter has ever met, even bigger than Mr. Delmar’s cat. The tabby isn’t fat, per say, just… long. Looking back on it, Tuna was probably a kitten when he found him in the alley way. At the time, he looked big enough to be an adult cat, but now, he’s  _huge_. The tabby’s large size means he’s amazing at approximately two things. The first being cuddling, and, the second being taking up as much space as physically possible.

 

Peter notices personality changes from Tuna over a long period of time. At first, especially when Peter is really grieving Tony’s death, the cat is comforting. He never leaves his side when he’s home, and tries to lick the tears off the teenager’s face on the days they don’t seem to stop. As time goes by, and Peter heals, Tuna’s snarky, up-to-no-good personality starts to shine. The brown tabby loves three things: Peter, May, and annoying the shit out of both of them. Tuna is a  _vocal_  cat on a good day. He’s so much worse on a bad day. It’s something that seems strange to Peter, looking back on it. The personality change is pretty significant, but he just chalks it up to the tabby finally coming out of his shell.

 

Another strange thing about the cat is his protectiveness; specifically over Peter. May and Happy date for a while, which, while Peter is disgusted by it at first, he gets used to it. During Peter’s senior year, they take a break, though. Peter is actually upset about it; he’s come to see Happy as an uncle and misses him constantly hanging around the apartment. And, in his absence, May dates around, just a little bit. Most of the dates May brings home tend to be of little interest to Tuna.

 

One night, though, May brings home a guy named Brandon. Brandon, as usual, doesn’t seem to get any attention from Tuna, who seems to be sporting an unimpressed stare at the man. It’s only when Brandon is rude to Peter while May is in the bathroom that the cat begins  _growling_  at the man, and protectively stands in front of the boy. Peter has never heard a cat growl like that before, and can’t help but double over with laughter. Brandon shuts up, and, finding it hilarious, Peter tells May.

 

Brandon isn’t welcome back.

 

The tabby also seems to show a lot of emotion. Tuna loves Happy, and though he’ll never admit it, Happy loves Tuna as well. so naturally, when Happy and May get back together, the cat is smiling the rest of the day, meowing loud and joyful when Happy first comes back to the apartment.

 

When Peter graduates, he seems… proud? Peter definitely sees it in the moment, where he’s trying on his cap and gown at home in front of the mirror, the smile and nostalgic eyes on Tuna’s face. Looking back on it, Peter thinks that’s ridiculous. Cats can’t feel pride, much less properly express it, right?

 

The way that Tuna seems to know when May is having a rough day, and will just let her hold him, despite normally hating being picked up. In fact, the only people that are allowed to pick the cat up are Peter and May, and only when either of them are having a rough day. They never really wonder how Tuna knows.

 

In some crazy way, in a way that has absolutely no explanation, Tuna reminds Peter of Tony. It happens sparsely; maybe once in a blue moon. The way that the cat looks is what sets it off for Peter, he tells himself. The way that Tuna’s coat is almost identical to the shade of brown that Tony’s hair was, the fact that a white circle sits proudly on his chest, so reminiscent of his mentor’s arc reactor.

 

In reality, It’s all in the way that the cat  _smirks_  and watches Peter with amusement when he accidentally misfires one of his many web-shooter combos at his bedroom wall and puts a hole through it. It’s all in the way the cat meows loudly at him until he properly bandages and treats his wounds from patrol. It’s all in the way that the cat protects him; how he feels like nothing bad can ever happen while Tuna is watching out for him.

 

Peter knows logically that this cat is not Mr. Stark. That’s not possible, right?

 

And when he jokingly calls the cat Mr. Stark after he does something that reminds him so heavily and nostalgically of his late mentor, Peter never notices the knowing smile that seems to grace Tuna’s features every time.

**Author's Note:**

> i'm so sorry for the crack you guys. this is the first fic i've really written and i know it's not long or anything but... i really enjoyed it? yeah.
> 
> anyways, here's a link to the song i drew inspiration from ( https://youtu.be/iLbk0ag84j0 ). to be honest it's really just the one line, "i'll make it through this if it kills me, then when it kills me i'll come back, jesus will make me a disciple, or maybe he'll let me be your cat". the rest of it is good but really doesn't fit the story or characters lol.
> 
> thanks for reading!!!


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